Before examining the linguistic peculiarities of the speech, we may very briefly point out that, in the course of the historical survey, many glaring contradictions of the statements of the Old Testament occur.(4) Stephen says
{155}
(vs. 2, 3) that the order to Abraham to leave his country was given to him in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Haran; but, according to Genesis (xii. 1 ff) the call is given whilst he was living in Haran. The speech (v. 4) represents Abraham leaving Haran after the death of his father, but this is in contradiction to Genesis, according to which(1) Abraham was 75 when he left Haran. Now, as he was born when his father Terah was 70,(2) and Terah lived 205 years,(3) his father was only 145 at the time indicated, and afterwards lived 60 years. In v. 5 it is stated that Abraham had no possession in the promised land, not even so much as to set his foot on; but, according to Genesis,(4) he bought the field of Ephron in Machpelah. It is said (v. 14) that Jacob went down into Egypt with 75 souls, whereas, in the Old Testament, it is repeatedly said that the number was 70.(5) In v. 16, it is stated that Jacob was buried in Schechem in a sepulchre bought by Abraham of the sons of Emmor in Schechem, whereas in Genesis(6) Jacob is said to have been buried in Machpelah; the sepulchre in Schechem, in which
{159}
the bones of Joseph were buried, was not bought by Abraham, but by Jacob.(1) Moses is described (v. 22) as mighty in words, but in Exodus(2) he is said to be the very reverse, and Aaron in fact is sent with him to speak words for him. These are some of the princ.i.p.al variations. It used to be argued that such mistakes were mere errors of memory, natural in a speech delivered under such circ.u.mstances and without preparation,(3) and that they are additional evidence of its authenticity, inasmuch as it is very improbable that a writer deliberately composing such a speech could have committed them. It is very clear, however, that the majority of these are not errors of memory at all, but either the exegesis prevailing at the time amongst learned Jews, or traditions deliberately adopted, of which many traces are elsewhere found.(4)
The form of the speech is closely similar to other speeches found in the same work. We have already in pa.s.sing pointed out the a.n.a.logy of parts of it to the address of Peter in Solomon"s porch, but the speech of Paul at Antioch bears a still closer resemblance to it, and has been called "a mere echo of the speeches of Peter and Stephen."(5) We must refer the reader to our general comparison of the two speeches of Peter and Paul in question,(6) which sufficiently showed, we think,
{160}
that they were not delivered by independent speakers, but on the contrary that they are nothing more than compositions by the author of the Acts. These addresses which are such close copies of each other, are so markedly cast in the same mould as the speech of Stephen, that they not only confirm our conclusions as to their own origin, but intensify suspicions of its authenticity. It is impossible, without reference to the speeches themselves, to shew how closely that of Paul at Antioch is traced on the lines of the speech of Stephen, and this resemblance is much greater than can be shown by mere linguistic examination.
The thoughts correspond where the words differ. There is a constant recurrence of words, however, even where the sense of the pa.s.sages is not the same, and the ideas in both bear the stamp of a single mind. We shall not attempt fully to contrast these discourses here, for it would occupy too much s.p.a.ce, and we therefore content ourselves with giving a few ill.u.s.trations, begging the reader to examine the speeches themselves. [------]
{161}
{162}
It is argued that the speech of Stephen bears upon it
{163}
the stamp of an address which was actually delivered.(1) We are not able to discover any special indication of this. Such an argument, at the best, is merely the a.s.sertion of personal opinion, and cannot have any weight. It is quite conceivable that an oration actually spoken might lose its spontaneous character in a report, and on the other hand that a written composition might acquire oratorical reality from the skill of the writer. It would indeed exhibit great want of literary ability if a writer, composing a speech which he desires to represent as having actually been spoken, altogether failed to convey some impression of this. To have any application to the present case, however, it must not only be affirmed that the speech of Stephen has the stamp of an address really spoken, but that it has the character of one delivered under such extraordinary circ.u.mstances, without premeditation and in the midst of tumultuous proceedings. It cannot, we think, be reasonably a.s.serted that a speech like this is peculiarly characteristic of a man suddenly arrested by angry and excited opponents, and hurried before a council which, at its close, rushes upon him and joins in stoning him. Unless the defence attributed to Stephen be particularly characteristic of this, the argument in question falls to the ground. On the contrary, if the speech has one feature more strongly marked than another, it is the deliberate care with which the points referred to in the historical survey are selected and bear upon each other, and the art with which the climax is attained. In showing, as we have already done, that the speech betrays the handy work of the Author of the Acts, we have to a large extent disposed of any claim
{164}
to peculiar individuality in the defence, and the linguistic a.n.a.lysis which we shall now make will conclusively settle the source of the composition. We must point out here in continuation that, as in the rest of the work, all the quotations in the speech are from the Septuagint, and that the author follows that version even when it does not fairly represent the original.(1)
We may now proceed to a.n.a.lyse the language of the whole episode from vi. 9 to the end of the seventh chapter, in order to discover what linguistic a.n.a.logy it bears to the rest of the Acts and to the third Synoptic, which for the sake of brevity we shall simply designate "Luke." With the exception of a very few words in general use, every word employed in the section will be found in the following a.n.a.lysis, based upon Bruder"s "Concordance,"(2) and which is arranged in the order of the verses, although for greater clearness the whole is divided into categories.
We shall commence with a list of the words in this section which are not elsewhere used in the New Testament. They are as follows:--[------], vi. 11; [------]t vi. 12; [------], vii. 16;(3) [------], vii. 19, but [------], occurs several times in Acts, see below, vii. 21; [------], vii. 24; [------], vii. 26; [------], vii. 45, this word, which is common amongst
{165}
Greek writers,(1) is used in lxx. 2 Chron. x.x.xi. 12; [------], vii. 52.
These nine words are all that can strictly be admitted as [------], but there are others, which, although not found in any other part of the Acts or of the Gospel, occur in other writings of the New Testament, and which must here be noted. [------], vi. 11, occurring 1 Tim. i. 13, 2 Tim. iii. 2, 2 Pet. iL 11, Rev. xiii. 5; [------], however, is used four times in Acts, thrice in Luke, and frequently elsewhere, and [------] in Luke v. 21. [------] vi. 13, used Rev. ii. 2, xxi. 8; [------], vi. 14, Rom. i. 23, " 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52, Gal. iv. 20, Heb. i. 12, almost purely a Pauline word; [------], vii. 5, elsewhere fourteen times; [------], vii. 16, also Gal. i. 6, Heb. vii. 12, xi. 5 twice (lxx. Gen. v. 24), Jude 4; [------], vii. 24, also 2 Pet. ii. 7; [------], vii. 26, also John vi. 52, 2 Tim. ii. 24, James iv. 2; [------], vii. 38, also Rom.
iii. 2, Heb. v. 12, 1 Pet. iv. 11; [------], vii. 39, also 2 Cor. ii. 9, Phil. ii. 8; [------], vii. 53, also Rom. xiii. 2, cf. Gal. iii. 19, but the writer makes use of [------], see vii. 44, below; [------], vii. 58, also Rom. xiii. 12, Eph. iv. 22, 25, Col. iii. 8, Heb. xii. 1, James i. 21, 1 Pet, ii. 1. If we add these ten words to the preceding, the proportion of [------] is by no means excessive for the 67 verses, especially when the peculiarity of the subject is considered, and it is remembered that the number of words employed in the third Gospel, for instance, which are not elsewhere found, greatly exceeds that of the other Gospels, and that this linguistic richness is characteristic of the author.
There is another cla.s.s of words which may now be
{166}
dealt with: those which, although not elsewhere found either in the Acts or Gospel, are derived from the Sep-tuagint version of the Old Testament. The author makes exclusive use of that version, and in the historical survey, of which so large a portion of the speech is composed, his mind very naturally recalls its expressions even where he does not make direct quotations, but merely gives a brief summary of its narratives. In the following list where words are not clearly taken from the Septuagint version(1) of the various episodes referred to, the reasons shall be stated:--
{167}
We shall now, by way of disposing of them, take the words which require little special remark, but are used as well in the rest of the Acts and in the Gospel as in other writings of the New Testament:-- [------]
{168}
{169}
We shall now give the words which may either be regarded as characteristic of the author of the Acts and Gospel, or the use of which is peculiar or limited to him:-- [------]
{170}
{171}
{172}
To this very remarkable list of words we have still to add a number of expressions which further betray the author of the Acts and Gospel:--
{173}
{174}
{175}
It is impossible, we think, to examine this a.n.a.lysis, in which we might fairly have included other points which we have pa.s.sed over, without feeling the certain conviction that the speech of Stephen was composed by the author of the rest of the Acts of the Apostles. It may not be out of place to quote some remarks of Lekebusch at the close of an examination of the language of the Acts in general, undertaken for the purpose of ascertaining the literary characteristics of the book, which, although originally having no direct reference to this episode in particular, may well serve to ill.u.s.trate our own results:--"An unprejudiced critic must have acquired the conviction from the foregoing linguistic examination that, throughout the whole of the Acts of the Apostles, and partly also the
{176}
Gospel, the same style of language and expression generally prevails, and therefore that our book is an original work, independent of written sources on the whole, and proceeding from a single pen. For when the same expressions are everywhere found, when a long row of words which only recur in the Gospel and Acts, or comparatively only very seldom in other works of the New Testament, appear equally in all parts, when certain forme of words, peculiarities of word-order, construction and phraseology, indeed even whole sentences, recur in the different sections, a compilation out of doc.u.ments by different earlier writers can no longer be thought of, and it is "beyond doubt, that we have to consider our writing as the work of a single author, who has impressed upon it the stamp of a distinct literary style" (Zeller, Theol.
Jahrb..1851, p. 107). The use of written sources is certainly not directly excluded by this, and probably the linguistic peculiarities, of which some of course exist in isolated sections of our work, may be referred to this. But as these peculiarities consist chiefly of [------], which may rather be ascribed to the richness of the author"s vocabulary than to his talent for compilation, and in comparison with the great majority of points of agreement almost disappear, we must from the first be prepossessed against the theory that our author made use of written sources, and only allow ourselves to be moved to such a conclusion by further distinct phenomena in the various parts of our book, especially as the prologue of the Gospel, so often quoted for the purpose, does not at all support it. But in any case, as has already been remarked, _the_ opinion that, in the Acts of the Apostles, the several parts are strung together almost without
{177}